Omerta Page 14

  Tonight there was a live band, and Nicole asked Astorre to sing in his now gravelly but warm lilting voice, which he always loved doing. They sang an old Italian love ballad together.

  When he serenaded Nicole, she clung to him and looked into his eyes searching for something in his soul. Then, with a final sorrowful kiss, she let him go.

  Afterward Nicole had a surprise for him. She led him to a guest, a quietly beautiful woman with wide intelligent gray eyes. “Astorre,” she said, “this is Georgette Cilke, who chairs the Campaign Against the Death Penalty. We often work together.”

  Georgette shook his hand and complimented him on his singing. “You remind me of a young Dean Martin,” she said.

  Astorre was delighted. “Thank you,” he said. “He’s my hero. I know his entire catalogue of songs by heart.”

  “My husband is a big fan, too,” Georgette said. “I like his music, but I don’t like the way he treats women.”

  Astorre sighed, knowing he was on the losing end of an argument, but one he had to make anyway as a certified soldier to the cause. “Yes, but we must separate the artist from the man.”

  Georgette was amused by the gallantry of Astorre’s defense. “Must we?” she asked with a wry smile. “I don’t think we should ever condone that kind of behavior.”

  Astorre could see Georgette wasn’t going to give in on this point, so all he did was begin to sing a few bars of one of Dino’s most famous Italian ballads. He looked deeply into her green eyes, swaying to the music, and he saw her beginning to smile.

  “OK, OK,” she said. “I’ll admit the songs are good. But I’m still not ready to let him off the hook.”

  She touched him gently on the shoulder before drifting away. Astorre spent the rest of the party observing her. She was a woman who did nothing to enhance her beauty but had a natural grace and a gentle kindness that took away any threat that beauty makes. And Astorre, like everybody in the room, fell a little bit in love with her. Yet she seemed genuinely unaware of the affect she had on people. She had not an ounce of the flirt in her.

  By this time Astorre had read Marcantonio’s documentary notes on Cilke, a stubborn ferret on the trail of human flaws, coldly efficient in his work. And he also had read that his wife truly loved him. There was the mystery.

  Halfway through the party, Nicole came up to him and whispered that Aldo Monza was in the reception room.

  “I’m sorry, Nicole,” Astorre said. “I have to go.”

  “OK,” Nicole said. “I was hoping you’d get to know Georgette better. She is absolutely the brightest and best woman I’ve ever met.”

  “Well, she is beautiful,” Astorre said, and he thought to himself how foolish he still was about women—already he was building such fantasy on one meeting.

  When Astorre went into the reception room, he found Aldo Monza sitting uncomfortably in one of Nicole’s fragile but beautiful antique chairs. Monza rose and whispered to him, “We have the twins. They await your pleasure.”

  Astorre felt his heart sink. Now it would begin. Now he would be tested, again. “How long will it take to drive up there?”he asked.

  “Three hours at least. We have a blizzard.”

  Astorre looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty P.M. “Let’s get started,”he said.

  When they left the building the air was white with snow and the parked cars were half buried in drifts. Monza had a huge dark Buick waiting.

  Monza drove, Astorre beside him. It was very cold, and Monza turned on the heater. Gradually the car turned into an oven smelling of tobacco and wine.

  “Sleep,” Monza said to Astorre. “We have a long ride ahead of us, and a night of labor.”

  Astorre let his body relax and his mind slip into dreams. Snow blurred the road. He remembered the burning heat of Sicily and the eleven years during which the Don had prepared him for this final duty. And he knew how inevitable was his fate.

  Astorre Viola was sixteen years old when Don Aprile ordered him to study in London. Astorre was not surprised. The Don had sent all his children to private schools and made them grow up in college; it was not only because he believed in education but to keep them isolated from his own business and way of life.

  In London Astorre stayed with a prosperous couple who had emigrated many years before from Sicily and who seemed to have a very comfortable life in England. They were middle-aged and childless, and they had changed their name from Priola to Pryor. They looked extremely English, their skins bleached by English weather, their dress and movement serenely un-Sicilian. Mr. Pryor went off to work wearing a bowler hat and carrying a furled umbrella; Mrs. Pryor dressed in the flowered dresses and swooping bonnets of dowdy English matrons.

  In the privacy of their home they reverted to their origins. Mr. Pryor wore patched baggy pants and collarless black shirts, while Mrs. Pryor dressed in a very loose black dress and cooked in the old Italian style. He called her Marizza and she called him Zu.

  Mr. Pryor worked as the chief executive of a private bank that was a subsidiary of a huge Palermo bank. He treated Astorre as a favorite nephew yet kept his distance. Mrs. Pryor indulged him with food and affection as if he were a grandson.

  Mr. Pryor gave Astorre a car and a handsome living allowance. Schooling had already been arranged at a small obscure university just outside London that specialized in business and banking but also had a good reputation in the arts. Astorre enrolled in the required curriculum, but his real interest was in his acting and singing classes. He filled his schedule with electives in music and history. It was during this stay in London that he fell in love with the imagery of fox hunting—not the killing and the chase but the pageantry—the red coats, the brown dogs, the black horses.

  In one of his acting classes Astorre met a girl his own age, Rosie Conner. She was extremely pretty, with that air of innocence that can be devastating to young men and provocative to older ones. She was also talented and played some of the leading roles in the plays staged by the class. Astorre, on the other hand, was relegated to smaller parts. He was handsome enough, but something in his personality prevented him from sharing himself with an audience. Rosie had no such problem. It was as if she were inviting every audience to seduce her.

  They took vocal classes together too, and Rosie admired Astorre’s singing. It was evident the teacher did not share her admiration; in fact, he advised Astorre to drop his music courses. He did not really have more than a pleasant voice, but even worse, he had no musical comprehension.

  After only two weeks Astorre and Rosie became lovers. This was more by her initiation than by his, though by this time he was madly in love with her—as madly in love as any sixteen-year-old can be. He almost completely forgot Nicole. Rosie seemed more amused than passionate. But she was so vibrantly alive, she adored him when she was with him; she was ardent in bed and always generous in every way. A week after they became lovers, she bought him an expensive present: a red hunting jacket with a black suede hunting cap and fine leather whip. She presented them as something of a joke.

  As young lovers do, they told each other their life stories. Rosie told him her parents owned a huge ranch in South Dakota and that she had spent her childhood in a dreary Plains town. She finally escaped by insisting she wanted to study drama in England. But her childhood had not been a total loss. She had learned to ride, hunt, and ski, and in high school she had been a star in the drama club as well as on the tennis court.

  Astorre poured his heart out to her. He told her how he longed to be a singer, how he loved the English way of life with its old medieval structures, its royal pageantry, its polo matches and fox hunts. But he never told her about his uncle, Don Raymonde Aprile, and his childhood visits to Sicily.

  She made him dress in his hunting garb and then undressed him. “You are so handsome,” she said. “Maybe you were an English lord in a past life.”

  This was the only part of her that made Astorre uncomfortable. She truly believed in reincarnation. But then she mad
e love to him and he forgot everything else. It seemed that he had never been so happy, except in Sicily.

  But at the end of one year, Mr. Pryor took him into his den to give him some bad news. Mr. Pryor was wearing pantaloons and a peasant knit jacket, his head covered with a checkered, billed cap whose shadow hid his eyes.

  He said to Astorre, “We have enjoyed your stay with us. My wife loves your singing. But now regretfully we must say our good-byes. Don Raymonde has sent orders for you to go to Sicily to live with his good friend Bianco. There is some business you must learn there. He wants you to grow up a Sicilian. You know what that means.”

  Astorre was shocked by the news but never questioned that he must obey. And though he yearned to be in Sicily again, he could not bear the thought of never seeing Rosie again. He said to Mr. Pryor, “If I visit London once a month, can I stay with you?”

  “I would be insulted if you did not,” Mr. Pryor said. “But for what reason?”

  Astorre explained about Rosie, professed his love for her.

  “Ah,” Mr. Pryor said, sighing with pleasure. “How fortunate you are to be parted from the woman you love. True ecstasy. And that poor girl, how she will suffer. But go, don’t worry. Leave me her name and address so I can look after her.”

  Astorre and Rosie had a tearful farewell. He swore he would fly back to London each month to be with her. She swore she would never look at another man. It was a delicious separation. Astorre would worry about her. Her appearance, her cheerful manner, her smile always invited seduction. The very qualities he loved her for were always a danger. He had seen it many times, as lovers always do, believing that all the men in the world must desire the woman he loved, that they too must be attracted to her beauty, her wit and high spirits.

  Astorre was on the plane to Palermo the very next day. He was met by Bianco, but a drastically changed Bianco. The huge man now wore a tailored silk suit and white broad-brimmed hat. He dressed to fit his status, for now Bianco’s cosca ruled most of the construction business in war-ravaged Palermo. It was a rich living but far more complicated than in the old days. Now he had to pay off all the city and ministry officials from Rome and defend his territory from rival coscas like the powerful Corleonesi.

  Octavius Bianco embraced Astorre and recalled the long-ago kidnapping and then told him of Don Raymonde’s instruction. Astorre was to be trained to be Bianco’s bodyguard and pupil in business deals. This would take at least five years, but at the end of that time, Astorre would be a true Sicilian and so worthy of his uncle’s trust. He had a head start: Because of his childhood visits he could speak the Sicilian dialect like a native.

  Bianco lived in an enormous villa just outside Palermo, staffed with servants and a platoon of guards around the clock. Because of his wealth and power he was now connected intimately with the high society of Palermo. During the day Astorre was trained in shooting and explosives and instruction with the rope. In the evenings Bianco took him to meet friends in their homes and in the coffee bars. Sometimes they attended society dances, where Bianco was the darling of the rich conservative widows and Astorre sang gentle love songs to their daughters.

  What amazed Astorre the most was the open bribery of high-placed officials from Rome.

  One Sunday the national minister of reconstruction came to visit and cheerfully, without any trace of shame, took a suitcase full of cash, thanking Bianco effusively. He explained almost apologetically that half of it had to go to the prime minister of Italy himself. Later, when Astorre and Bianco were back home, Astorre asked if that was possible.

  Bianco shrugged. “Not half, but I would hope some. It’s an honor to give His Excellency a little pocket money.”

  During the following year Astorre visited Rosie in London, flying in for just one day and night at a time. These were nights of bliss for him.

  Also, that year he had his baptism of fire. A truce had been arranged between Bianco and the Corleonesi cosca. A leader of the Corleonesi was a man named Tosci Limona. A small man with a terrible cough, Limona had a striking hawklike profile and deep-socketed eyes. Even Bianco voiced some fear of him.

  The meeting between the two leaders was to take place on neutral ground and in the attendance of one of the highest-ranking magistrates in Sicily.

  This judge, called the Lion of Palermo, took great pride in his absolute corruption. He reduced the sentences of Mafia members convicted of murder, and he refused to allow prosecutions to go forward. He made no secret of his friendship with the Corleonesi cosca and that of Bianco. He had a great estate ten miles from Palermo, and it was here that the meeting was to take place in order to ensure that no violence would be done.

  The two leaders were permitted to bring four bodyguards each. They also shared the Lion’s fee for arranging the meeting and presiding over it and, of course, the rent of his home.

  With his huge mane of white hair almost obscuring his face, the Lion was the picture of respectable jurisprudence.

  Astorre commanded Bianco’s group of bodyguards, and he was impressed by the affection shown between the two men. Limona and Bianco showered each other with embraces, kissing cheeks and clasping hands stoutly. They laughed and whispered intimately over the elaborate dinner the Lion presented to them.

  So he was surprised when, once the party was over and he and Bianco were alone, Bianco said to him, “We have to be very careful. That bastard Limona is going to kill us all.”

  And Bianco proved to be right.

  A week later an inspector of police on Bianco’s payroll was murdered as he left the home of his mistress. Two weeks after that one of the society swells of Palermo, a partner in Bianco’s construction business, was killed by a squad of masked men invading his house and riddling him with bullets.

  Bianco responded by increasing the number of his body-guards and taking special pains to secure the vehicles he traveled in. The Corleonesi were known for their skill with explosives. Bianco also stuck very close to his villa.

  But there came a day when he had to go into Palermo to pay off two high-ranking city officials and decided to dine in his favorite restaurant there. He chose a Mercedes and a top driver/ guard. Astorre sat in the back seat with him. A car preceded him and a car followed, both with two armed men in addition to the drivers.

  They were driving along a broad boulevard when suddenly a motorcycle with two riders zoomed out of a side street. The passenger had a Kalashnikov rifle and pumped bullets toward the car. But Astorre had already shoved Bianco to the floor and then returned fire as the cyclists zoomed away. The motorcycle went down another side street and vanished.

  Three weeks later, under cover of night, five men were captured and brought to Bianco’s villa, where they were tied up and hidden in the cellar. “They are Corleonesi,” Bianco said to Astorre. “Come down the cellar with me.”

  The men were bound in Bianco’s old peasant style, their limbs interlocked. Armed guards stood over them. Bianco took one of the guard’s rifles and without saying a word shot all five men in the back of the head.

  “Throw them in the streets of Palermo,” he commanded. Then he turned to Astorre. “After you decide to kill a man, never speak to him. It makes things embarrassing for both of you.”

  “Were they the cyclists?” Astorre asked.

  “No,” Bianco said. “But they will serve.”

  And it did. From then on peace reigned between the Palermo cosca and the Corleonesi.

  Astorre had not been back to London to see Rosie for almost two months. Early one morning he received a call from her. He had given her his number, to be used only in an emergency.

  “Astorre,” she said in a very calm voice. “Can you fly back right away? I’m in terrible trouble.”

  “Tell me what it is,” Astorre said.

  “I can’t, over the phone,” Rosie said. “But if you really love me, you’ll come.”

  When Astorre asked Bianco’s permission to leave, Bianco said, “Bring money.” And he gave him a huge bundle
of English pounds.

  When Astorre arrived at Rosie’s apartment, she let him in quickly and then carefully locked the door. Her face was dead white, and she was huddled in a bulky bathrobe he had never seen before. She gave him a quick grateful kiss. “You’re going to be angry with me,” she said sadly.

  In that moment Astorre thought she was pregnant, and he said quickly, “Darling, I can never be angry at you.”

  She held him tightly. “You’ve been gone over a year, you know. I tried so hard to be faithful. But that’s a long time.”

  Suddenly Astorre’s mind was clear, icy. Here again was betrayal. But there was something more. Why had she wanted him to come so quickly? “OK,” he said, “why am I here?”

  “You have to help me,” Rosie said, and led him into the bedroom.

  There was something in the bed. Astorre threw back the sheet to find a middle-aged man lying on his back, completely naked, yet with a dignified look. This was partly due to the small silver goatee or perhaps more to the delicate carvings of his face. His body was spare and thin, with a great mat of fur across his chest; oddest of all, he wore gold-rimmed spectacles over his open eyes. Though his head was large for his body, he was a handsome man. He was about as dead a man as Astorre had ever seen, despite the fact that there were no wounds. The spectacles were crooked, and Astorre reached to straighten them.

  Rosie whispered, “We were making love and he went into this horrible spasm. He must have had a heart attack.”

  “When did this happen?” Astorre asked. He was in minor shock.

  “Last night,” Rosie said.

  “Why didn’t you just call the emergency medical team?” Astorre said. “It’s not your fault.”

  “He’s married and maybe it is my fault. We used amyl nitrate. He had trouble climaxing.” She said it without any embarrassment.

  Astorre was genuinely astonished by her self-possession. Looking at the corpse, he had the strange feeling that he should dress the man and remove his spectacles. He was too old to be naked, at least fifty—it didn’t seem right. He said to Rosie without malice but with the incredulity of the young, “What did you see in this guy?”